Talk:The Man from Alphabet
Fargo North, Decoder There's a confusing sentence in the second paragraph: "Most of these ads placed stress on the "comic strip" aspect of the series, and on the presence of Gary Owens, then an up and coming personality." The phrase "these ads" seems to refer to the previous sentence about the DC Comics ads, but Batman and Superman don't mention Gary Owens or the "comic strip" aspect. So it must be referring to something else, but there's nothing in the rest of the paragraph about ads. Also, I think there's a parallel between the Man from Alphabet and Fargo North, Decoder from The Electric Company. I think we could have a sentence or two on "Connell's Folly" moving to The Electric Company a couple of years later. It seems like the basic concept -- a bumbling detective playing with words, making guesses that aren't correct -- turned out to be more appropriate for the older age group. Also, didn't he have trouble getting into his office, similar to the Man from Alphabet coming through the window? It would be a nice ending to the story to say that the concept, which failed on Sesame, evolved into a popular character on Electric Company. Do other people see the connection, or am I off base? -- Danny (talk) 13:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC) :The sentence refers to the earlier statement: "As one of the earliest film segments completed, the series was heavily featured in advance promotion for Sesame Street, mentioned in newspaper articles and promotional copy as early as March 1969." That's what it's about, not the DC ad (which can be moved later if that helps). I've dug up at least 6 or so different newspaper blurbs which have stressed the above, but they were so numerous I didn't know if it would be at all useful to cite. And I think the Fargo thing is more than a bit of a stretch. Definite general similarities, but I don't agree with your conclusion. Interviews with Paul Dooley state that the concept evolved from an educator who insisted on using the word "decode" instead of "read." Plus, Fargo always got it right in the end. As far as we can tell from the history, the Man from Alphabet didn't. I think it would be worth mentioning it (frankly, it's a lot stronger than the Jane Tuesday comparison), but I'd disagree with your conclusion. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 13:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC) :::Yeah, that Jane Tuesday comparison isn't as strong as I thought, but I did find a segment with even more similar elements. It's from Sesame Workshop's sister show, Square One TV: :::http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Niblick_of_the_Math_Brigade :::I've got most of these segments, and they're very similar to the Man from Alphabet. The writing style is practically identical, with the same type of sight gags and Get Smart-style jokes that MFA had. The series also featured Gary Owens voicing the titular character (though he was noticeably smarter than the Man, he still tended to stumble with common household chores), as well as Bob Arbogast voicing various minor characters. The show was co-created by Dave Connell and Jim Thurman, so it's no surprise that the elements from the films appear on SQ1, especially in the Dirk Niblick and Mathnet series. -- MuppetDude 16:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC) Jane Tuesday? I'm building an article on the Jane Tuesday segments, and noticed this sentence, added by Tony: "However, elements of the segments do appear in Sesame Street's current Jane Tuesday segments." Can this be elaborated on? I haven't seen Man from Alphabet, and I expect few if any of us have, but based on the descriptions I've read in books on the subject, I don't clearly see the connection between the two series, outside of the fact that both have characters in trench coats. The "elements" that appear in both need to be clearly specified, or else the line dropped. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)